Gemini Year
by Little Bucky
Summary: Shawn has a secret only three other people know: his parents and Gus. But now, his secret's out in the open, as well as his psychic abilities tested and questioned.
1. Chapter 1

Shawn's endured some major shit over the last few years as a psychic. Glared at for breaking big cases that didn't belong to him, laughed at for both major and minor mistakes, even smiled at when he figured out something the cops couldn't and helped save the day (though his still got a few glares).

The only time he'd been on the receiving end of any type of sympathy was during his parent's divorce when his parents had some "important news" to tell their son.

But he'd never been subject to those looks from the SBPD.

At least not until today.

Shawn and Gus come to the station after Gus had been solemnly told to report to the Chief. Shawn wasn't mentioned in the conversation, but he automatically assumed he was involved. Why Gus and not Shawn? Vice versa as well.

Nevertheless, as they walk into the station, everything goes silent. Gus and Shawn share a, "What the hell?" and an, "I don't know," before everything breaks out into chaos. The Chief is being called, _screamed,_ for, Juliet yells from across the room, and practically everyone in the station is surrounding them.

"Shawn! Oh my God!" Juliet rushes over to hug him tight. Shawn, though thoroughly confused, hugs back.

"I could use a welcome like this all the time," he jokingly says.

Juliet releases him, then begins examining him. "Ok, Shawn, tell me where it hurts. Here?" She pressed on the inside of his elbow, hard enough for Shawn to hiss and reel back.

"Ow, Jules! What was that for?" Shawn rubs his elbow.

Juliet begins immediately stammering apologies and something about an "ordeal" and "all that you went through" until Shawn's head starts spinning. He grabs her shoulders, quieting her down immediately.

"Okay, Jules. Take a deep breath." She complies. "Good. Now, tell me what's going on."

She looks thoroughly confused, and frowns. "How did you escape?"

Shawn glances at Gus, who shrugs. "Well Gus can be real overbearing sometimes but-"

"No," Juliet says, shaking her head. "I meant from the kidnappers."

"I was kidnapped?" Shawn asks, looking back at Gus again, who wore a similar frown. "I can promise you that me and Gus have been joined at the hip for the last few hours looking for the place selling those churros with the chocolate dipping sauce." Shawn sighs. "It seems he evaded us yet again."

Gus gives Shawn a serious "I'm going to kill you," look, and turns back to Juliet. "Juliet, just tell us what happened."

Juliet opens her mouth to talk when the Chief comes over, and when she saw Shawn, she gasps. "Spencer, what- how did you get here?"

Shawn squints. "I drove backseat in the Blueberry. Gus was very particular about his donuts." Gus elbows him in the ribs, and Shawn elbows back. They're on verge of an all out war when a person yells for the Chief.

"They're doing it again!"

The Chief grabs Shawn's arm and yanks him into the conference room. Gus follows closely behind, trying to see past the bodies blocking their path.

Lassiter was standing next to the television, looking up as they enter the room. His angry expression morphed into surprise and freezes. Shawn honestly thinks he finally broke. Lassiter shakes himself.

"What.. the... hell, Spencer," he growls.

Shawn holds his hands up in surrender. "I swear on Gus' sweet, sweet head I have no clue what's going on." Shawn eyes the television. There's a man sitting in a chair, hands and ankles bound to the arms and legs of the chair. His head is down, and by the way his hands are limp, Shawn guesses he's asleep.

Or unconscious.

Both are still bad possibilities.

A woman comes into view, smile on her face. She winks at the camera, and stands behind the man. "Hello again, officers, detectives." She laughs. "Shawn."

Out of the corner of his eye, Shawn can see everyone glance at him before turning back to the screen.

She yanks the man's head back, but Shawn couldn't make out his face. "Shawn, don't be rude. Wake up!" She grabs the front of 'Shawn''s neck and squeezes. 'Shawn' gasps, and starts coughing. The woman lets go, circling around the front of the chair.

Shawn's blood runs cold. His entire body starts to shake and he manages to trip on his own feet trying to get closer to the screen.

Gus grips Shawn's arm. "Shawn," he whispers. "Shawn, that's-"

"Oh my God," Shawn says, covering his mouth with his hand. He looks away from the screen for half a second before taking a deep breath and forcing himself to look back, searching for any clues.

"Gus, Shawn? What is it?" Juliet asks.

Shawn now understands why people were confused.

He swallows the sudden knot in his throat. "That's my brother."

"Brother?" Chief, Lassiter, and Juliet all yell at the same time. Shawn shushes them as the woman continues talking.

"Chief Vick," she says, looking straight at the camera, "I have your psychic. Maybe he can tell me what I'm going to do next."

The entire police force winces and looks away as the woman brings down a small pipe on Shawn's brother's hand. Shawn feels like he might throw up. The woman smiles.

"Did you guess that?" She stage-whispers. The woman stands in front of the camera, kneeling down to be at eye level, the mask covering half her face stuck in a spiraling smile. "Don't you worry. There'll be plenty more. You know what I want." She reaches over and shuts off the camera.

Chief grabs Shawn and Gus, Lassiter and Juliet automatically following them into the Chief's office. She sits down, leaning back in her chair.

"Spencer, you are going to tell me everything."

Shawn narrows his eyes, glancing at Gus. "Everything?"

"Start with your brother," she says, hands crossed on her chest.

"Fine. His name's Aaron. We're... twins."

Lassiter groans. A dull slap follows. "Well, there's two of them."

"Lassiter," Chief warns.

Shawn keeps going. "He's been in Japan for the past few years. I didn't even know he was in town."

"What was he doing in Japan?" Chief asks.

"He works with an electronics company, helps design games."

"So why would he come back?"

Shawn shrugs. "His company has conventions all the time during the year, his schedule's erratic. But, there's no way someone could pinpoint exactly-"

Convention. That's it. Aaron's company goes to every single one of them, or close enough to it. The largest one was coming up this weekend. If the kidnappers even caught a glimpse of Aaron and mistook him for Shawn, they could've waited until he was alone and nabbed him then.

"The convention," Shawn whispers to Gus.

"Excuse me, Mr. Spencer? What's going on?" Chief asks, sitting up in her chair.

Shawn lifts a finger to his head. "There's a gaming convention this weekend, Friday to Sunday. Aaron's company is there. I bet they waited until they caught Aaron alone, thinking it was me."

"Where?"

"Uh." Shawn closes his eyes and flips through his memories. The last time he and Aaron spoke was just a few months ago. He remembered something about "sticking close to Santa Barbara" and "loving the sea."

"He was near the ocean!" Shawn opens his eyes. "He didn't want to stay at a hotel with a bunch of stuffy computer geeks, so he booked a hotel room by the water but still near the convention."

"Lassiter, O'Hara. Start a search for all the hotels overlooking the ocean."

Lassiter and Juliet leave. Shawn runs after them, but is stopped by Chief.

"Shawn, " she says in a firm and confident voice, "we'll find him."

Shawn can't speak, just nods and runs after Gus, who's standing between the two detectives' desks, pacing back and forth.

"It's going to be fine. Just fine," Gus mutters to himself. He stops as Shawn nears him. "I can't just stand around right now, Shawn."

Shawn claps him on the shoulder. "I know. But we have to." He turns to the detectives. "Has anyone called my dad?"

"We tried," Juliet says never looking away from her computer. "He's not picking up. We left a message saying it was urgent."

"Perfect." Shawn wants to go and look for Henry, but he also wants to help find Aaron. Gus looks at him.

"I'll go find Henry, Shawn. Stay here and call me if anything happens." Gus walks out quickly, clearly single-minded about his mission. Shawn doesn't even think that food would stop him.

Now Shawn has some time to think. He's quiet for about ten minutes before something hits him. The woman had said, " _you know what I want,"_ right before she cut the video.

He's up and out of his chair in seconds, pushing open the doors to the Chief's office. "You're not telling me everything."

She gives him an apologetic look. "I know. It was for safety reasons before, but now it's much more serious."

Shawn gulps. "How so?"

"You didn't see the other video-"

"There was another video?"

"-but there are two suspects. A man and a woman. The man has mask, a jaguar. The woman, who you've seen, wearing a half-mask of the moon, is the more violent of the two. In the first video, they showed Aaron tied to the chair, like you saw, but with a sack over his head." She pauses. "They claimed they had our psychic. When they pulled off the bag, we thought it was you. Aaron didn't speak. The man said they wanted half a million dollars. No plane. No car. Nothing, except to be let free."

"Why no transportation?" Shawn says mostly to himself.

"We were trying to figure it out when we realized the video was a live stream." Chief glances at him. "I'll spare you the details, but they roughed him up quite a bit."

Shawn grinds his teeth together. "What did they do?"

She takes a breath, swiping the hair from out of her eyes. "As they did it, they told us what they were doing. Aaron was kicked in the shins twice with steel-toed boots, punched him four times with brass knuckles, then the man cut the video."

Shawn stands up, running a hand through his hair. "We need to find him."

"Shawn, I have one more question. Is your brother psychic too?" Chief asks, eyes pleading that the answer be yes.

But Shawn couldn't answer, because Lassiter was calling out to them.

"I found it!" Lassiter reads the address off the notepad. "The Sunspot Hotel. Ten minutes away from the convention. Overlooks the ocean."

Shawn doesn't smile, just follows Lassiter and Juliet out of the building. They don't even tell him to stay behind, because all of them know that nothing would stop Shawn and he would get there anyway.

It takes only 12 minutes to reach the hotel, but it feels like years by the time Lassiter pulls up. Shawn's the first one out, before the car even comes to a complete stop. Lassiter and Juliet are yelling at him, but it doesn't stop him.

"I need the security cameras from yesterday," Shawn says as he approaches the counter. The manager looks confused.

"I'm sorry, who are you?"

"He's with us," Juliet says as she and Lassiter pull out their badges. The guy tells them to follow, and they're lead to the security office. Shawn asks to see the outside footage.

"This is for the entrance. This overlooks the parking lot. This is the back entrance," he says, pointing to the different monitors.

Shawn watches each tape, each minute that passes increases the nerves building up inside him. It was the parking lot tape that stopped him.

"Wait! There!" Shawn points to a blond woman, carrying a baby in her arms.

"Spencer, that woman has a child. Our's is most likely going to be by herself," Lassiter points out.

 _To appear more disarming, I carry a baby._

Shawn brings a hand up to his head. "No," he says. The woman in the video. She had brown hair, yes. Her eyes were green, yes. But Shawn remembers that her index finger on her left hand was as long as her middle finger. By the way the woman was holding the "baby", Shawn could see the outline of her hand.

"That's her. I know it." He takes over the chair, fast forwarding the tapes. Shawn watches Aaron walking in to check in to the hotel, and the woman's eyes following him. A few minutes later, Aaron walks out, sunglasses on, and towards the town. Shawn guesses he was going to surprise Shawn, Gus, and Henry.

As Aaron moves out of the frame of the camera, so does the woman.

"Do you know who that woman was?" Juliet asks the manager.

He shakes his head. "I don't remember any blonde, single or otherwise, mothers with one child checking in."

"Well, thanks anyway," Lassiter says, standing up and leaving the room. "O'Hara, Spencer, let's go."

They walk outside. Shawn sees the spot where the woman was standing. He stands in the same spot, mimics her movements, trying to get a better view of what the woman was seeing.

Shawn narrows his eyes, moving on the spot, spinning 360 degrees. He stops when he's looking at the town. Right across the street from the hotel was a diner.

He points to it. "We have to check there."

Shawn and Juliet run across the street, while Lassiter gets the car. Flashing her badge, Juliet gets them both to see the tapes.

"There." The woman is there, slowly following as she rocks her "baby". Aaron is obliviously walking on the sidewalk, and Shawn is a little angry that Aaron didn't notice a woman following him, baby or not.

Unless...

The man comes into frame from the front, but Aaron is now glancing back to look at the woman. The man has cloth in his hand, presumably soaked in chloroform, and covers Aaron's mouth. He's is dragged out of frame again, towards the park residing next to the diner.

Lassiter catches up to them as they're walking out.

"Aaron was knocked out, dragged this way," Juliet explains as Shawn leads them to the park.

No marks. Nothing to indicate a scuffle. The tree line looks like it hasn't been bothered in years. From what Shawn can see, they must have had a van to bring them away from the scene.

Shawn looks harder. That's when he sees it. The slight, almost indiscernible crack in the uniform shape of the trees. A branch was broken.

"Spencer!" Lassiter yells as Shawn runs towards the break.

Shawn wants to run into the woods, follow any clues to keep his brother from getting more hurt. "They went this way," Shawn says instead, pointing into the woods.

Juliet and Lassiter look suspiciously at Shawn, but he insists. They call in back up, and within ten minutes, Henry, Gus, and even the Chief arrived.

The first thing Henry did was hug Shawn. Normally, Shawn would've stood there like a statue, rolling his eyes. But Shawn clutched back.

"First me, then mom, then you, now Aaron. Can we please get a year off?" Shawn chuckles, though there was no humor to it.

Henry sighs. "One day, maybe." He pulls away. "For now, let's get your brother back."


	2. Chapter 2

AARON

 _This is not good._

He repeats this to himself more and more often as time goes on. As well as cursing himself for not noticing that it was a two-man kidnapping. Aaron can hear his dad yelling at him over the woman laughing in the other room.

They are smart. His hands and ankles are tied to a chair in the middle of the room with plastic ties, and no nearby items to help him. He's never been claustrophobic. but he feels panic edging its way into his field of vision and blurring his eyes.

"Shawn, what the hell did you do?" Aaron mutters to himself. What he knows from emails is only that Shawn worked with the police department. Though Aaron always asked how, if Shawn was really a cop like dad, or if he's just bothering them, Shawn never actually answered him.

Now he's wondering if that was a good thing.

"Hey!"

Aaron freezes, staring up at the man standing over him. His mask is gone, and there's a small mole on his upper lip that's normally hidden under the mask.

Aaron stays quiet.

The man glares, about to speak when the woman walks over, hand on his shoulder and smiles at Aaron.

"He's adorable. If my source is right, the cops will pay. They can't afford to lose their precious psychic, can they?" She leans over Aaron, squeezing his cheek.

 _Psychic?_ Aaron wants to groan. He's going to kill Shawn if he lives through this.

"Plus he's a civilian," the man adds.

"Ain't a normal civilian, though." The woman smiles. "Seeing into the future? Reading crystal balls? Reading tarot cards? Like a shop psychic maybe."

Aaron takes a deep breath, refuses to bite into their clearly-laid bait. He shakes his head.

"What's that? I can't hear you?"

When Aaron looks up, she's holding a phone in front of his face. She reaches over and curls a hand under his jaw.

"I wonder what you would look like with a bloody lip," she wonders out loud.

Aaron braces himself, but it still hurts when she punches him square in the mouth. He spits the blood onto the floor.

She does it again, and again, and again until she's satisfied with her work. She bites her tongue and leaves the room, the man following close on her heels.

They start talking, but Aaron can't focus on them right now, though he knows he should. His ear is ringing, blood dripping from his mouth, and he thinks a tooth might be loose. He doesn't poke it yet.

The windows are covered in wood. He can't tell if that's light peeking through or just another room. Aaron sighs, and almost gives up, almost decides to just give them the satisfaction of him talking. But if they know he's not really Shawn, then they will almost certainly kill him.

Aaron likes his life too much to die just yet. He wants to unveil the new game his company is working on this weekend and he has a sinking feeling that he won't be back in Japan next week.

If she was taking a video, that means she wants the cops to feel insecure, angry for not finding them sooner, guilty for not saving their "precious psychic."

Seriously, Aaron's going to have some fun with that knowledge.

They walk back into the room as Aaron starts to plan his escape.

"Okay, one more video that we will give them tomorrow, and by then, we'll be thousands of miles away."

He tries not to be surprised at this information. So they want the cops to trace the videos, or for the investigators to find their location. Like cat-and-mouse.

Aaron really doesn't think far past that when the man suddenly holds a cloth over his mouth. Instead of a drug, it's just water, and then man is cleaning off the blood room Aaron's mouth. They want him to look like it's been some time.

The woman hands a mask to the man, pulling on her own, and placing the camera on the tripod before turning it on.

"Hello Santa Barbara's finest. I hope you enjoyed our last video. Raw, behind the scenes footage of what's been happening here. I will admit, your Shawn is very difficult to break. Absolutely refuses to speak. Quite incredible. But we'll destroy him soon enough."

Aaron feels hands wrap around his neck and can't even yelp in pain as the man squeezes. He's on the brink of passing out when the man lets go, gasping big gulps of air when he's free to do so; the man's hands stay planted on his shoulders, keeping him in place.

The woman trails a stun gun against his arms. He tenses, waiting for the shock to come. So when the barbed wire is whipped against his thigh, he yells.

She does it once more, then holds the wire up to the camera.

"Bought it recently. Had to... bargain a bit to get it faster." Aaron gasps as heat rolls over him, white hot at the points where he's bleeding.

The man squeezes tight enough to crush Aaron's collarbones in his bare hands.

"Of course, it won't go to waste."

The woman wraps the barbed wire carefully around Aaron's ankles and legs. Aaron has a feeling, an urgent feeling telling him to stay still.

The man pulls his hands off, and Aaron isn't ready for the quick but forceful tap of the stun gun to his shoulder. He jolts and the barbed wires pulls against his legs.

Aaron can't hold back his screams.

* * *

He wakes up disoriented and angry. He's in the back of a van, mouth covered with duct tape and his hands and legs are tied tight with rope.

He remembers the emails he received about the Yin-Yang killer, about how his mom was kidnapped and strapped to a bomb. He also remembers Henry talking about how Shawn was _shot_ and kidnapped, and ended up jumping onto a speeding car at the end of the debacle.

If Shawn, his goofy, 7 seconds younger brother, can survive all that, so can Aaron. Hopefully.

The back of the van has light streaming in through the blacked out windows, and the separator between the back and front is closed. Aaron can sit up, thankfully, and finds his whole body aching and hot. He's in the remnants of his t-shirt, and his jeans are all bloody and ripped from where the barbed wire cut into him.

It hurts to breathe, and he remembers being strangled by the man at the beginning. Like a treat for what was to come.

Shawn really needs to find him quick.

He moves closer to the separator when he hears muffled voices, trying to catch their names.

"-don't wanna ever leave you."

"And I you. Never leave my side, älskling."

"Of course. I'll be here until the end."

Aaron winces at that. By the sound of that, they're willing to die for each other. And Aaron is most likely going to be the middleman between them and the cops.

He sighs. He's already ransom, which also serves as a body shield.

Henry taught him and Shawn how to break out of a trunk of a car, but never a van and never when they were kidnapped by Bonnie and Clyde without the burglar tendencies and more murder and torture tendencies. Aaron isn't a fan of being tortured, and is in no hurry to be tortured any time soon, yet he knows as soon as they relocate he'll be strapped down and taped.

And he doesn't even know why. Why Shawn? Why kidnap and _torture_ him? What could Shawn have possibly done to them to warrant such pain? What would they do if they realized he isn't actually Shawn?

Aaron doesn't want to know. He doesn't think they'll just let him go off on his own. Thoughts of what could happen if anything goes wrong turns his stomach.

On cue, and rather inappropriately, his stomach rumbles.

God, he could really go for a taco.


End file.
